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Around 6 pm a fire broke out in the abandoned house of the doctor and writer Laza Lazarević, on Hilandarska Street No. 7, which once housed the “Chika Jova Zmaj” Children’s Department of the Municipal Library. A person inhaled the smoke and the ambulance was transferred to the Military Medical Academy. The fire was extinguished by the rapid intervention of firefighters, and according to the first estimates, a room was smoked and the garbage that accumulated under this roof was burned, where, as it was heard, the migrants took refuge from the cold.
The memorial marble plaque on the wall of the house, which testifies that Laza Lazarevic also lived here, was not damaged. This building has been eroding the ravages of time for many years. The government first leased the house to the B92 Fund, and when it was learned from the Restitution Agency that the heirs of the former owners were looking for this house, Veran Matić and his associates moved in. The Agency for Restitution returned the property in Hilandarska 7 to the children and grandchildren of the former owners Kuzman and Dragoljub Sotirović with partial settlements just over two years ago. But, the heirs must be patient before deciding how to dispose of the property, because the decisions made are not final.
Confusion over unresolved property relationships has been going on for the past two years, and before that, the City Library, a user at the time, asked authorities for help in renovating the building. The city claimed that they could not finance the rehabilitation because this facility is not owned by them. Not even the republic, which according to the Public Property Law owns cultural assets and must take care of them, was not interested in investing in saving the house, which in the meantime is deteriorating more and more every day.
It is also remembered that Laza Lazarević moved into this house in August 1887 and died on December 29, 1890. His wife Poleksija later sold the house to the Palilula Savings Bank.
The building was loaned to the City Library’s Children’s Department under a contract with the city signed in 2007, for a period of 20 years, and the building also had a home for high school students. The library moved from here in 2017.
Laza Lazarević’s house is part of the Kopitareva gradina protected environmental ensemble under the protectorate of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade.
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